FSE

Furry search engine

formerly SoFurry search engine

Written by Taiko

Edited by Draconicon and TheLibrary

Notus belongs to Robb

Captive King and art used for icon belongs to SaltyTart

Nor, Novus Ager and Racing Stripes belong to Taiko

Technodude belongs to Darkness Haven

Notus had been under the other man for over twenty minutes now. He knew this because his watch buzzed when he missed a pre-set time, like an alarm clock with a Napoleon complex, every ten minutes past the due time until he answered it. He had programmed it to alert him to text his friends of his progress on the bus. Given his head had been wedged between a man's ass cheeks all that time, and no amount of punching, clawing or kicking did anything to fix that, he thought his watch could forgive him for being occupied. He hoped his friends did not think he forgot, too.

"Ha! A Shadow of Doubt Falls Over Novus Ager's Bus Depots?" the figure sitting on him boomed, his deep voice resonating through the muscle that surrounded Notus' face. His laughter almost made the hamster's ears ring. "Hey, it says that no passengers went missing today. That I just came in, did some property damage and left like..." There was a pause, and even from his position Notus could hear furious keyboard action. "Oh, I'll show that reporter what a wrecking ball is really like!"

Notus doubted the travel company would make an official statement like that. However, even if he was not in some kind of hidden base belonging to his captor, he had already decided he was not taking their services again. The bus seats had been one large foamy piece, so there was no way to adjust the headrest for his shorter stature, and the wifi barely worked even when they were in towns. He had been trying to find a hotspot at the bus depot when he had been taken in the first place.

Now... well he was not sure exactly where he was. All he remembered was a shadow looming over him, a set of thick hands grabbing him by the head and waist, the world suddenly spinning before being replaced by the interior of a large, dark bag. After that was a series of jostles, jumps and swings that made Notus feel sick to his stomach, and then a car ride that seemed to go on for hours (although his watch told him it was only around forty-eight minutes). His phone had been lost somewhere between the initial grab and the subsequent bag, so he had no way of tracking where he was, alerting authorities, or even to pass the time beyond trying to chew through the bag. After the first few extremely bitter bites made him stop, the next time he saw any light that did not come from his watch was when he was pulled out and laid on a chair bigger than a living room carpet and was promptly made into a hamster cushion.

Suffice to say, it was quite the start to his vacation.

"Hrmph, damn penname. Oh well, he'll meet the Captive King sooner or later. Guess you'll just have to get used to your new home, chipmunk. It'll be nice to have someone so soft back there."

Notus felt his white furred face burn at the statement, though whether it was from outrage or embarrassment he wasn't sure. It only grew warmer as a pair of fingers slid under his head and pushed his face deeper into the figure's ass crack, smushing his nose against a tight pucker. Notus was no stranger to a man's derrière, and being only five feet tall made him rather more prone to being sat on than he liked, but he had yet to encounter one this size and firmness before, and for this long. Fortunately he had what felt like a small mattress under him, so it was not the least comfortable position he had ever been in, but that same support also meant that there was precious little space to fall back into away from the ass. He was doubly fortunate in that the Captive King seemed to be a religious bather, given how clean everything was.

As much as he hated to say it, he was starting to get into a bit of a comfortable position, though that might have been the lack of oxygen talking.

The Captive King started to grumble, grinding his hips back and forth over Notus' head, flattening his ears and dyed hair to his scalp. For a moment Notus thought of resisting, trying to adjust himself, but then he heard mutterings of 'can't be over this quick.'. It took him a few moments to realize that his captor was actively looking for a response, some kind of resistance.

The hamster was normally not one to stonewall someone, but for the Captive King he was happy to make an exception. It did mean that he was actually starting to feel rather dizzy though, as those huge hips bore down on him and quashed his already limited air supply. He could have moved his head to try and get a better angle, but that would most likely encourage this.

He held his breath as best he could, as still as he could, but the Captive King did not make that easy. His limbs were pushed at odd angles, his body rocked side to side as he was rubbed to and fro, and for a moment Notus reflected on the one time in college he thought being a chair might be fun...

Then he felt his body spring up off the mattress for a second. Heat and pressure were replaced by cool air and a sensation of lightness, even as his t-shirt and shorts clung to his body. It took all his willpower not to gulp it all in.

"Tch, can't even handle someone eleven feet tall," the Captive King muttered, though Notus almost did not recognise the voice now that it was not resonating through his skull. "We'll see if he likes fifteen feet later..."

Notus found his eyes starting to adjust to the light of the room, having spent far too long in the dark. For the first time he was getting an idea of what his captor looked - a brown figure with a red back... no, a red cape, just down to the small of his back. A pleated skirt ran around the muscled waist - a pteruges, not a skirt, some sober part of his mind recalled from classes on Roman history - and a very bull-like tail waved over him. He thought the musk was familiar, though it had been a while since that time at the college bleachers. He could almost make out the brand on the jockstrap the bull was wearing, too.

The bull paused, and then turned to look at Notus. A black domino mask covered the bull's eyes, a thick, gold septum piercing was set into his nostrils, and for a moment Notus could swear that his left horn was damaged in some way, bandaged. The bull, or the Captive King as he wanted to be called, seemed to consider Notus, raising a brow and patting the hamster's face. The palm alone could have held his whole face, and each pat sent his head bouncing along the mattress. It was almost too easy to let it happen, though he held his breath a bit harder each time it did.

The Captive King paused, and then shrugged.

"Whatever. I've got a schedule to hold onto. Heroes to manhandle, people to play with and all that jazz. Normally I'd tie you down, Chip, but seeing as you look pretty high from my ass..."

It was irritation more than anything that finally brought the hamster to lucidity, watching the bull who had taken him captive walk off.

As the Captive King walked, every step he took grew deeper, clopping louder on the floor, sending vibrations through the chair and into Notus' body. The bull's body seemed to rise with every step, though Notus could only tell how much when a series of lights turned on and flooded a massive doorway in the side of the wall. Squinting into it, Notus could make out the bull growing until his horns were just short of the yawning doorway. As if on command a pair of equally massive doors started to slide shut as he walked through them, squealing from neglect.

For a moment Notus wondered if he misplayed his hand. If the doors closed then he could move freely within the room, but he had no confidence he could get out as easily as the Captive King did.

Fortunately, fate threw him a bone. As the doors hit one another with a deafening thud, they rebounded off one another instead of coming to a halt. A mechanical whine in the walls sharply rose and then cut out, echoing throughout the room as the doors slowly stopped. The room was silent for a few seconds.

"Tch, no wonder this place was abandoned," the bull said, before the clopping thuds continued, "Well, he's not going anywhere at least."

Notus stiffly lay back and waited for the clops and vibrations to die down, alternating between looking to the ceiling and the partially open doors. It was a solid minute before he let out the breath he had been holding in and let himself relax.

"Oh god, what have I gotten myself into," he said, running his hands through his once-styled pink and blue dyed hair. After trying to get it to stand up again he sighed, stretched and took stock of the dark room.

It was a pretty bare place, all things considered. A bed behind him, a table with a still active computer in front of him, and a chair under him, all of them huge compared to himself. He felt like an action figure, even an eleven foot tall person would have been small among the furniture, which said something of the normal size scale the Captive King operated on. The computer monitor was the only real source of light around the place, and it reminded him of a theatre screen more than anything else.

The rest of the room resembled an aircraft hanger with looming, domed ceilings, though with the dark it was hard to get any real detail. The air was quiet, dusty and slightly damp, almost like a tunnel that had fallen into disrepair.

Or an abandoned secret base, he supposed, given what the Captive King said.

As much as Notus wanted to try and use the computer to his own ends, he saw no convenient ladders or walkways to the tabletop from the chair, and he doubted he could have used a mouse or keyboard terribly easily either. The floor, on the other hand...

He looked over the edge of the chair. Even in the light from the monitor it looked far.

He gulped.

***

"Ow, ow, ow..." he muttered to himself, rubbing his backside as he limped from the chair towards the door. Fortunately for Notus, the distance was a lot smaller than he had anticipated and he did not feel like the landing had broken anything. On the other hand, action movies really made sliding down a pipe to get to the bottom easier than it was. His skin still tingled from where the metal had slid under him.

The walk to the door was uneventful, though every step of Notus' running shoes on the concrete floor made him wince just a little. He was almost certain he would start hearing the same thundering clops from the hallway, as though the Captive King had forgotten something. He was still waiting for those clops as he reached the doors and peered through.

Bare concrete corridors greeted him, dull gray with arrows painted on the walls in stark white, and small blue hexagons set where the wall met the floor. The silence set his teeth on edge and reassured his still frayed nerves.

"Okay, right or left," he said to himself, before checking the floor. The concrete was scuffed in a particular, hoof-like pattern, one that went up and to the right passageway. "Left it is then."

With luck, the Captive King had gone to some form of secret planning room, and the other way would take Notus towards the entrance, or some form of vehicle bay or a map of some kind. Even if a visiting center was out of the question, surely anyone who made this place would get lost without a map every other place, right?

***

Four corridors, three turns and one spiral staircase later, Notus was no closer to an entrance or a map than he thought he was before. He had no memory of the pattern the Captive King had taken before he was pulled out of the bag, and before long he had started to rely on looking for the most trod path to follow. The higher up he got the smaller and darker the corridors became, but all that accomplished was to make him feel like he was on a set of Stargate rather than any place someone worked in. No map, no floor indicators, not even lines on the floors for a sense of direction, just more dull gray corridors and those same weird blue roundules.

At that point he would have given a lot for a simple bench to sit down on, though. The smaller corridors seemed to rise and fall at random intervals, as if whoever had poured the concrete had forgotten to level it properly. That, combined with the lack of markers, made walking through the facility far more tiresome than it had any right to be.

"He wasn't kidding," he muttered to himself as he turned down another random corner, "No wonder this place was abandoned. I'd half expect someone to go insane trying to navigate with a map, much less with how bad this floor is..."

The corridor opened up into a large hall, a few solitary lights turning on as he entered, revealing the walls set with rows upon rows of smoky glass doors. Each row had a platform with a railing set, much like a giant prison room. Long tables stretched from one end of the hall to the other, benches set alongside them, a few discarded plates and cups left to gather dust. A few banners hung from the ceiling in military camo, with the words "FOR FAUN" written down the middle in dark purple and faceted eyes in the corners.

"...or maybe just by having to eat with this decor," he murmured, his eyes glancing around. No skeletons, no corpses, no shambling horrors left to while the rest of their days behind glass as far as he could see. Granted, the glass was dark and the lights were not great, but nothing he could see...

Slowly Notus stepped into the hall, his ears training hard for any sounds of life. Nothing, no scratches, no whispers of the dead, just himself and-

Knock knock knock, directly behind him.

Notus' shout echoed throughout the room like a siren, as did the smack of his hands to his mouth to silence it. The echo rounded throughout the corridors forwards and back, like a rascally child just waiting to stretch their legs.

Notus turned around to face the glass door behind him. What faced him was a white, chubby hamster dressed in a button-up shirt, shorts and sneakers, with a hairdo that was entirely slicked back with sweat. The hamster's hands were covering his mouth and his eyes had a crazed, terrified look... although now that he looked closer they were looking more confused than anything else. And the outfit was...

"Oh..." he squeaked before sighing and relaxing a little. If he ever got out he decided he would leave out the bit of being scared of his own reflection. "But who-"

The glass knocked again, and this time Notus looked up, seeing the shadowed face of someone tall behind the glass. A roughly seven foot tall figure who was clearly tied up and whose middle finger was barely touching the glass.

Nerves rooted Notus to the floor for a moment, before he noticed the figure was gesturing to the side of the door. His own eyes followed, and he saw a panel set into the wall. It better resembled an elevator floor panel with a card reader on the side. A keycard was stuck partway in a slot, and Notus frowned.

"Well that's a little careless." Glancing back to the man behind the glass, Notus reluctantly reached for the card and swiped it through the slot. The door beeped, and slowly slid out and to the opposite side.

The figure behind it made a loud gasp, and sighed as he hung from his restraints.

"Oh, thank god, I can hardly breathe in here," the man said between deep breaths. Notus quietly took a look at the gasping man, and raised a brow.

"Hey, um, are you okay," he said, leaning in a little closer, "Because, um, you're... kind of all red and blue. All over."

The figure was a mule of some sort, as far as Notus could tell, but from head to toe he was painted in red and blue splotches or clouds that looked plain strange to him. Even his mane was in that pattern, and being no stranger to hair dying Notus knew it was no mean feat to have a splotch only go up partway. The only breaks in the pattern were the black bracers on the mule's wrists and ankles, the speedo that covered his waist and the white eyes that were... yep, pure white. His feet looked weird too, almost like they ended in three toes with a hoof apiece.

"Huh? Oh, yeah, sorry. I'm Nor, nice to meet you."

"...Nor? Is that short for Norbert, or Norman, or...?"

"No, just, well, Nor." As Nor caught his breath he noticed the look that Notus was giving him. "You're new to Novus Ager, aren't you?"

"Um, kind of, yeah? Is it that obvious?"

"Let's just say that my reputation precedes me," the mule said, chuckling a little. "It's actually kind of nice not having someone know me on sight."

"Oh. Well, nice to meet you, uh, Nor. I'm Notus." The two of them looked at one another before Notus looked at the mule's spread eagle position. "Would you like some help down?"

"If you wouldn't mind," Nor said with a smile, one of his fingers gesturing to the panel, "Should be something on there for restraints. The Captive King hit a few buttons when he put me in here."

"Oh, he got you too then," Notus said as he fiddled with the display, frowning at all the guttural beeps it was giving him. "Sorry, these are just really, horribly labeled. Any idea on what ones he touched?"

"Oh, yeah. Try hitting Enter C4 dash A18 dash D2 slash J1 three times, then swipe the card again."

The matter of the fact way the mule recounted the sequence left Notus blinking at him for a few moments.

"I've got a photographic memory, among other things."

"Right... and that's why he dressed you up like this?"

"Oh, no, this is my super suit."

"Super-"

Notus paused as he felt the ground rumble under his shoes. He could feel the color leave his face as the familiar sounding clops started sounding out, and coming from the way he had just come from.

"Oh no..."

"Quick," Nor whispered, audibly trying to keep calm, "Hit Enter, C4, dash, A18, dash-"

Notus did his best to focus on the task at hand, but the clops were getting louder and faster.

"-J1, J1, J1, and swipe."

The screen beeped at the sequence being entered in, flashing as if waiting for the last step. Notus took the card and swiped it through.

The card got stuck halfway through the reader, hitting an edge inside. The display displayed an angry ERROR and then blanked itself. Nothing happened when Notus swiped the card again successfully.

"I-it didn't do anything," he muttered, looking back to the mule.

"Oh for goodnes- no, it's okay, it did that for him too. Just try it again. Remember, Enter, C4, dash-"

"A18 dash D2 slash J1 three times," Notus repeated, his voice a little more hysterical as he repeated the motion. However, when he swiped the card again this time the display read Incomplete Sequence and Notus realized he only hit J1 twice. By now the clops were outright making the tables vibrate.

"Notus, are you," Nor said, before he leaned his head out the door and grimaced. "Notus, just go! Hurry! I'm more durable than others, I can survive if he finds me like this. Choose a tunnel and run!"

"What? No, I'm not leaving you to that brute," Notus said, panic rising as he hit a button labled Clear and started again. His fingers slipped twice as he tried to re-enter the sequence, requiring a Clear both times.

"I'm a superhero, Notus, I'll be fine," Nor said, once again trying to keep his voice calm. He flinched as a bench was very audibly kicked into a table.

"Well well, Chip. Looks like I can't leave you alone for five minutes before you try and find someone else to be a cushion for." The Captive King ducked into the room from one of the larger passages, his body briefly shrinking down before rapidly rising up. More tables and benches were knocked to the side, and out the corner of his eye Notus could see a battle axe being unslung from the bull's back. "Heh, for another cushion it seems. Looks like someone needs to be punished a bit-"

The display beeped happily as Notus swiped the card through the reader. The manacles holding Nor's body popped open together, and the mule dropped forward in an unceremonious heap.

"Wha- Oh you didn't," the Captive King started, before Nor rose from the floor and swept the hamster off his feet.

"Hold tight," Nor said, barrelling down the hall like a linebacker, huddling Notus into his chest.

"Oh fuck no!" the Captive King roared, raising the axe above his head.

The next few moments happened in slow motion for the hamster. The doorway Nor was dashing for suddenly turned into a mass of dust, exploding concrete and a gigantic axe that was missing someone holding onto it. They were off the ground, Nor's hands and a foot on top of a tabletop. Notus was getting any purchase he could on Nor's suit, the rubber-like material letting his fingers get a decent grip.

He remembered a very brief image of the Captive King's face in a very broad grin, with no axe in sight.

Then the moments after that were an almighty blur. They were bouncing along the table, dust was everywhere, the ground was shaking, everything was loud and the smoky glass along the walls were rushing past them. Then they were in another corridor, hanging lights above them going past like streetlights in a moving car.

Notus thought he heard something in his ears, but the ringing from the explosion and the rushing of air past his ears made it impossible for him to understand what was being said. After prying a hand off Nor's chest, he gave his ears a quick couple of bops, and felt something rough slip out.

"-ai, you okay," Nor said between regular breaths, but seemingly not at all bothered with carrying a five foot man. Notus was duly impressed.

"Um, I, I think so?" Notus said, almost more asking himself than anything else. When Nor looked at him quizzically Notus shook his head and spoke up. "Yes. What happened?"

"Oh, he threw his axe, broke the path I was aiming for, so now we're going down another route."

"Can he follow us?"

Notus felt the ground shake under them, and he craned his head over Nor's shoulder. The Captive King skidded around a corner, bracing himself on a wall and then charged after them.

"Yeah, most likely," Nor said without breaking stride, "But he's not as agile as I am, so I should be able to lose him."

"You've been here before?"

"No, but I don't think he's really explored this place anymore than I have."

That was not as reassuring as Notus wanted to believe. Still, how hard could it be to lose a giant in a maze of corridors?

***

It turned out to be pretty dang hard. While Nor made good on his statement of being much more agile than the Captive King, the bull's strides were much longer. Any headway they managed to get by ducking down a corridor or a stairwell too small was made up for when they inevitably reached a much larger one. It did not help that the Captive King could just as easily shrink down to fit their own routes.

Unfortunately, Nor was also proving to not have the same endurance the Captive King had. After a full fifteen minutes of running the mule was getting sloppier in his steps, panting much harder and having swapped Notus into a piggy-back formation, which Notus was finding decidedly less comfortable. Not once did he drop the hamster, however, maneuvering himself to take the brunt of any falls they took.

"We can't go on like this forever," Notus said as they stopped at yet another intersection. In fact, based on the scrapes on the floor, it was one they had already gone down.

"No, but... but we can, catch our breath here," Nor said, half jogging to a nearby wall. "I saw this, when he got me, earlier... supply cupboard, I think. Saw it earlier, couldn't stop so we could use it."

Notus peered at the door. He had missed it the first time around, when Nor was still able to go at full speed. It was the same concrete grey as the walls, but it was set relatively deep into the wall and had a doorknob and lock protruding just far enough they were level with the wall itself. The lock had a series of buttons under a knob, rather old fashioned compared to the keycard button system from earlier. He was reluctant to call it a "cupboard", but given how Nor was exhausted he did not comment on it.

"Do you know the combination?"

"Yes, yes I think so." Nor set Notus down onto his feet, which the hamster found very strange after being carried for a full quarter of an hour, and carefully pressed a series of buttons. Three digits, each with a heavy thunk as they went in and then a twist of the knob.

It did not move.

"What? No, oh no," Nor muttered, panting faster as he tried the combination again. No dice. Again, nothing. He hit the wall with a groan. "Oooooh, no, please..."

"Let me guess. Wrong door?"

"Wrong door! Fuck! I thought this was it, but, but we've been going through so many routes and doors I must have..."

In that one moment Nor looked more tired than Notus had seen him throughout the whole chase, clearly searching his mind for where the doorway had been. Notus reached up and rubbed the mule's back gently. However, the ground started shaking again and the mule sighed in a defeated way.

"Come on, let's-"

"No, wait," Notus said, leaning in closer to the lock. "I think I can get this open."

Nor was silent as Notus leaned in, checking all five buttons. Even with Nor's attempts, three of the buttons were clearly more used than the other two, polished with finger oils. Notus tried a sequence, top to bottom. The knob refused to move. He tried it bottom to top, and the knob refused to move.

"Notus, come on, I can find the right door."

"I've almost got it."

Over and over, Notus tried combinations, one hand on the buttons and the other on the knob. Thunk, thunk, thunk, twist. Thunk thunk thunk, twist. Again and again, it did not move.

"Come out, come out little pigs," a deep voice called out down the corridor, the vibrations getting much stronger, "Your king is growing tired of this."

"Okay, I'm up, time to go," Nor said, grabbing Notus by the midsection.

"Not yet!" The hamster tried one last combination, and then twisted the handle. The door jolted as the lock opened.

For a second Nor stood there, Notus half off the ground. Then without warning the two of them reached for the knob, turned it, shoved themselves past the door and shoved it back as quietly as possible. They pressed themselves firmly to the door as the room started rumbling, and then stopped.

"Oh, come on," they heard through the door, a rumble happening as the Captive King took a tentative step, "Do we really have to keep doing this?"

Notus and Nor had their hands over each others' faces, lest their very breathing attracted the bull's attention. Nor's palm was enough to cover Notus' nose and mouth, while Notus needed both hands to pinch Nor's nostrils and lips shut.

Notus was starting to feel the strain of holding his breath when finally the bull grumbled and started down a random path, Nor and Notus bouncing slightly with his stride until finally the rumbles became faint. Then they released one another, gasping loudly into the dark.

"Oh, thank goodness," Nor panted, slowly sliding down the door as his legs gave out. "I thought he was going to just punch the door at any moment there."

"Yeah, that... was too close..." Notus' chest heaved as he took in the refreshing, dusty air the closet provided, slowly rubbing his legs to get some feeling back in them.

"Nice work on the door, though. Genuinely, not sure... not sure I could have gone running that much longer."

"No no, I get it. I was..." Notus wiped his brow. "I was just tired of running. We were getting literally nowhere, and now that we had a bolthole, well, it couldn't be worse than that."

Nor chuckled, but said nothing to that.

It was silent for a moment before Notus muttered, "It's quite dark here though. Do you have a light?"

"Hmmm, I had a communicator, but Kingy out there smashed it when he got me. Didn't want to be tracked I guess."

"Oh yeah? How did he catch you?"

"When I was on patrol mid route. It was... when I was kind of on automatic to be honest. Even in Novus Ager you develop a routine in where you're going and how. I didn't notice him until I was dangling in his fist." Notus heard the mule rise up from the floor, and a slight slapping sound on the wall. "There has to be a lightswitch somewhere."

"So, um... if this isn't too much to ask, why did he just grab you then?"

"Oh, much the same reason as you, I imagine, though I guess he was saving me for after he tried you out," Nor said, grunting as he knocked something metal to the ground. "The Captive King is big into domination play, and he mostly does that by sitting on people, making them his cushions and such. If he thinks they're sexy enough and spurned him, he... well, makes them into his toys instead. Saves on silicon I guess. Oh where is it..."

"I see," Notus said, suddenly feeling a little self conscious about how he was just standing around. Then something struck him. "Wait. You knew he sat on me?"

With a loud click the lights came on, blinding Notus for a moment. The room was surprisingly bare, consisting of a single bench and lockers that covered the walls. Fluorescent bulbs hung from the ceiling.

"Well, yes. He asked if you were looking for someone else to be a cushion for, and you were roaming freely when you found me. You also seemed pretty unfamiliar with the place and too defiant to have been here long. Considering he had a squirming bag with him when he got me, and I was the only one he locked up before moving on, that leaves just... well, you Notus." Nor brushed himself down, smears of dust covering his hands. "Besides, I could smell it on you."

Notus' sputtered, tried to say anything, stuttered his first word, and then hid his face in his hands as it turned deep red. He was gently hugged into Nor's chest.

"Hey, hey, it's okay, no shame in it," the mule said, rubbing Notus' back, "This is a situation outside of your control, and even if you volunteered for this I would not see you any differently. It happens to me far more often than anyone would have expected."

"It does?" Notus looked to Nor's face, just to make sure he was not being fed a line. The mule's white eyes looked back into his own.

"Why do you think he grabbed me in particular?" Nor gently slapped his own face, and Notus saw the skin and fur ripple far more than it should have. "My body's kind of gelatinous when you get down to it, stretches and deforms more than it should without harm. Great for impacts and reforming, and for... well, sex, I guess." Now that did make him look sheepish.

"And that's what your, um, reputation is about?"

"...yeah, mostly. Word gets around when fights with villains turn, um, sexual," Nor murmured, suddenly looking a little uncomfortable. "Spices up routines, I guess..."

It struck Notus at just how relieved Nor had looked back when they met, and he wondered what it would be like to meet someone who was unaware of his inexplicably public exploits. How it would feel to have someone meet him and judge him based on how he acted in the moment, and not from word of mouth. What it would mean to just talk and be considered normal.

He reached out and patted Nor's side.

"Well, at least I'm with an expert and not someone in over their head," Notus said. "Don't know what I'd be doing if I had someone less... calm about all this, honestly. I really feel like we're going to get out of this okay and not be trapped in this place forever now."

Nor chuckled, and visibly relaxed, and Notus realized he was feeling that way too. The moment turned quiet, and slowly Nor slipped away from Notus.

"Thank you. Now, since we're here, and the Captive King's liable to double back at some point, let's take stock of what we've got to work with."

"You really think that whoever owned this place just left something useful lying around?"

"Probably. This place used to belong to a guy named Faun. He was big into making secret bases all around Novus Ager, mixing military with mystical symbolism. I think that's why this place is such a labyrinthe honestly. The layout might just fit some sort of big magic circle or something."

"You said was, though."

"Well, yeah. Faun has a habit of... well, getting caught just after a plan of his gets most of the way through. There's a bit of a betting pool going on at the Union about where he gets the funding to keep starting these places up on. It's a lot more troublesome than it might sound, too, given his lackies usually take over and cause all kinds of problems before imploding."

Notus had several questions regarding the conversation, but the one that came up the most number of times was 'Superheroes have unions?'. He filed that question under the mental folder of 'Ask About Later' - it was getting alarmingly full.

"Well, since this place hasn't imploded, we're bound to find something handy here?"

"Let's hope so."

***

The closet was alarmingly well stocked. While it was lacking any weaponry, every locker had something stuffed in it, often to the point of falling on Nor or Notus when the door was opened. Granted, half of them were full of jumpsuits, brooms and military rations, and at least one was stuffed full of cardboard boxes with nothing in them. The others had bric a brac so random that it resembled a turned out family basement.

However, one locker proved to be rather more useful. The inside of it was covered in charging stations for a strange hexagonal device, ones that reminded Notus of a palm pilot crossed with a teacup saucer. They were a stark white with blue filigree along the edges, with a rectangular screen surrounded by buttons, weirdly ergonomic grips on the sides and a stylus on top. Perhaps the oddest thing about it was the trademark on the back - the Faun Pilot It turned on immediately after being popped out, and after it eagerly (and insistently) ran Notus through a registration process as a new recruit, it gave the pair exactly what Notus had wanted for the last hour: a map.

"Okay, we're taking the next left, then we're there," Notus said, feeling Nor's hands subtly reposition along his back. They had managed to find a fold out bike among the random items, and though it was definitely not the right size for Notus it was far more comfortable to be pushed on it than it was to be carried by Nor. Given it was Nor's idea, Notus was glad he did not have to seem ungrateful.

That said, the device profoundly refused to work when out of Notus' hands, apparently something to do with the registration process. They managed to get around that with some velcro straps and some tape, putting it onto his arm like some sort of gauntlet. It chafed a little, but given that it still dutifully provided them a map of the whole facility Notus decided he could make do.

"How much farther?" Nor puffed as they rounded the corner, before his eyes widened and he gripped Notus' hips. At the same time the hamster applied the bike's brakes, and the two skidded to a halt in front of a pair of massive doors. "Oh... okay. Could have done with a bit of warning, but okay."

"Sorry, they, um, the doors didn't show on the map," Notus said, his knuckles white as he gripped the handle bars, "I think it just shows those... roundule things in the floor." As the adrenaline slowly faded he managed to release them, letting Nor gently tip him off the bike. "Okay, so, now that we're here... what now? I don't think we're big enough for hoisting them open."

"The gadget should have something," Nor said as he set the bike against the wall. "There are enough buttons for it."

Novus looked down at the Faun Pilot and grimaced. They had not needed to experiment too much to get to the map function, but now that they needed something else he was reminded of the cell keypad. Namely, extremely poor labelling.

"Here's hoping we don't need a keycard," he murmured, before attempting navigation.

What ensued was many, many loud and angry beeps from the device, not helped from it being awkwardly stuck to his arm. Lamenting at how television always made it look easier, Notus tried combination after combination, at one point even managing to turn the lights off in the hallway until he figured out the sequence.

"Okay... M, A1, B1, Load Menu," he muttered to himself, looking up to Nor and then the screen as it loaded the door lists for the third time, "S1, A2, E?"

Nor's fingers were moving as if counting down steps, his eyes looking off into a nonexistent distance. Wordlessly he held a thumb up, and Notus hit the final button.

The doors shuddered, and a mechanical hum started as they parted. Notus and Nor cheered, holding one another as they jumped in triumph.

"Yes, yes yes yes," Notus said, feeling ready to cry in relief, "We're almost out!"

The hum started turning into a grating roar as the doors opened past five feet. The two men opted to hold their ears instead of one another.

"Outed, that's for sure," Nor shouted, shaking his head before pointing to the darkness past the entrance. "Come on, he'll have heard this from the next province!"

"What?" Notus shouted back, feeling his teeth start to be shaken loose. The floor rumbled, the noise reached a screech... and then a loud, metallic bang was heard, and everything stopped. Dust started to fall from the doors, parted just twelve feet out of their thirty foot length.

"Let's go," Nor sighed, rubbing the bridge of his muzzle, "I just hope Faun was as cheap with the exit. I couldn't stand if that was the point we got stuck on."

As Nor retrieved the bike, Notus looked down to the Faun Pilot and tried a sequence for the lights. Fortunately, he only had to try twice before the room followed his instruction, and a series of popping sounds ensued. He was left seeing spots as the black room turned obscenely bright, but after a few moments his eyes adjusted.

The room beyond the doors was clearly a loading bay of some sort. Stacks of wooden crates left abandoned, a rail mounted crane on the ceiling still holding a crate, striped sections painted on the floors and the forklift told them everything they needed to know on where they were. The signs of the Captive King were clear, though - there were plenty of boxes smashed against the walls by the doors, with cracks and breaks that thoroughly implied a hefty kick was involved. The aerosol cans that had been inside them were either left derelict on the floor or thoroughly crushed into unrecognisable pancakes. Any that were intact were simply unlabeled.

"Any idea on what these were?" Notus held the canister up.

"Probably canned ghosts or something." Nor took a glance at Notus' expression and how the hamster gingerly set the can down, and sighed. "I honestly don't know, Notus, and right now it's not something we should worry about. We just have to get those big doors over there, and then we can finally be out of the maze and get people in to figure out what plans Faun abandoned here," Nor said, pointing out the shutter doors at the opposite end of the room. "Want to go over the opening sequence again?"

"Um, I'm trying, but," Notus said, thumbing through the list of doors on the screen, "I don't know if this one's part of the listing? Everything here is just 'Bay doors' or 'Cell door' or some variation. The ones we just went through is under the only 'Loading bay' setting I can find."

"Oh, great, a skeleton key that can't open the most important door of them all," Nor muttered, before he shook his head. "Okay, let's not panic..."

"I'm not," Notus said, even as his fingers anxiously grappled with one another, "Did you see how the Captive King got the doors open?"

"He just reached down and lifted them up, in his huge form. Same with those ones," Nor said, gesturing back to the smoking sliding doors. Even from across the room, Notus could see some indents along the bottom of the shutters that almost looked like finger indents. "I don't think he ever found one of those pilot doodads, they just open automatically for anything like a fork lift and he just happens to be big enough to trip the systems."

"So, that means a forklift might do it?"

"That, or there's some kind of override in here." The red and blue mule rubbed his head before he looked up. "Those should be the crane controls," he said, gesturing to a box bolted between the ceiling and the wall, "So they might have something for the doors."

Notus nodded, as he looked over the ladder, only for something else to catch his eye.

"Um... is it just me, or is that a camera on a tripod," he said, pointing at a camera that was at least three feet tall standing on a tripod fifteen feet above the ground, wires strung from it into the wall. He had a flashback to when he was on the chair, looking down to the floor, and got vertigo looking at it.

"That? Oh, yeah. I think that's the Captive King's though. I think he has the ability to magnify the size of things he's holding when he changes his own size. Pretty selective too, given how he kept changing sizes after he grabbed me and I stayed the same."

"You are way too blase about this," Notus said, before he ran to the doors. "Let's find that switch."

Unfortunately, while they found switches aplenty, the array looked more akin to an exposed circuit breaker box than an operating panel. At this point Notus would not have been surprised if it was just that, given how bizarrely slapdash the whole place felt. Equally unfortunately, just as they were getting ready to start flipping switches at random, they felt the ground rumble, and familiar noises start up.

"Notus, quick, into the crane controller before he gets too close," Nor said, ushering Notus towards the ladder.

"Me? There?!" Notus squeaked.

"It's the only place with any cover," Nor hissed, all but forcing the hamster onto the rungs, "None of the boxes are tall enough to hide behind, not from his height, and he won't look there if he finds me. I can handle his wrath, but you're a civilian. I'll lie about where you are, just, please, go."

There was a desperate tone to Nor's voice that got Notus moving more than any fear of his own. They had known each other less than an hour, and yet he was trusting his life to this one risky decision.

"Okay, just... run if you have to," Notus said, trying hard not to slip with how much his hands were sweating. He did not look down the entire way up - he knew he would not be able to leave Nor if he did.

He managed to get his head up through the square hole in the control box before the entire room was rumbling, and he almost slipped off the ladder. He barely managed to get his feet in when the Captive King's voice boomed out.

"Game over!" The frustration in the bull's voice was only matched by the groans of the doors as they were forced further open, and then closed with a loud and exaggerated slam. It made Notus flinch on the floor of the control room, especially as the box itself rattled. "Nowhere to run, nowhere to hide! Fee fi fo fucking fum!"

Notus was suddenly glad that the control room's windows stopped just above where the desks ended, though he still crawled under one just to be safe. The carpeting was spongy under his hands and knees, and he flinched as the swivel chair spun gently as he brushed past it.

"... what are you doing?" the Captive King said incredulously, and Notus froze in his hiding spot. Then he heard something under the thumping of his heart in his ears. It sounded like... metal being hammered?

"Come on, damn you..."

"Okay, this is kind of pathetic." The floor rumbled, and a wooden box was audibly kicked out of the way. "Are you seriously trying to pry the doors up with a folding bike?"

"Well I didn't exactly have a crowbar, did I?"

"Just... where did you even get that thing? You're not dumb enough to have gotten out, found that, gotten back in and gotten trapped with it." There was a loud snapping sound. "Though dumb enough to break it."

"More aluminum than I thought," Notus heard, before he heard the noises of hooves on concrete. "He-hey, watch it-wow!"

"Gotcha," the Captive King said. "So, Nor, where did you get it, and where is Chip? Seems strange that a hero like you would abandon someone to big ol' me. Or maybe lil' ol' Chip wanted nothing but a nice piece of ass to kiss-"

"He's a hamster, King, not a chipmunk." Nor groaned suddenly, and was left gasping for a few moments.

"Talk back and I squeeze harder, hold back and I squeeze longer. Now, where is he?"

"He..." Nor grunted again, and quickly wheezed, "He's in a supply cupboard. They're everywhere around the base, those little doors set in the walls, like the one you used before locking me up. We found one that was still propped open."

"Well, that was fast," the Captive King chuckled, followed by another pained gasp from Nor. "Oh come on, don't look at me like that. You're like a stress toy, always cutely bulging when I press and coming together again in time for the next one. Why do you think I took you?"

"I don't know," Nor panted, "My ass maybe? Everyone seems to love it."

"Don't kid yourself, Kooshball. I don't go for used goods." The floor shook a little as the Captive King apparently paced about, kicking another box for good measure. "Tell you what Nor, I'll make a deal with you. Tell me where that supply cupboard is that you hid Chip in, and you'll be out of my hands. No more squeezing, no stressing, no seeing just how much like Stretch Armstrong you are. I'll even pretend I just found him at random, like I kicked a few doors in to see where they went."

There was a pregnant silence, and the Captive King sighed.

"Or I could just see how much like gum you are-"

"He's down by corridor L 33 T Beta Sigma. There's only one cupboard there."

"...and that's where, exactly? None of the corridors are labeled. "

"It has really big hanger doors, around an intersection that goes two ways but still manages to converge at the same point absurdly easy. We found your footprints near it, like you go there a lot. We figured that if you went there so often you wouldn't realize we had been there."

"Pfft, you hid him right outside my bedroom?" The Captive King snorted and grinned. "I'm impressed by the audacity if nothing else. Well, I suppose I should fulfill my side of the bargain." Another few steps, and then a loud but muffled click sound emerged. Notus heard a beep come from his Faun Pilot, and he checked the screen - a notification about a new broadcast was in the lower right corner.

"Wow! Wait, what're you-"

"Hello, Novus Ager! This is the Captive King, your newest arrival and eminent top dog," the bull said, his voice echoing loudly throughout the concrete room. "I interrupt this news broadcast to give you a very special announcement I'm sure you're going to enjoy."

Notus tried to hold his ears while navigating the Faun Pilot, and when that failed he opted to just bear with it and press buttons. He was starting to get the hang of this weirdly bad interface, and soon he managed to not only access the notifications system but find the application to watch the broadcast.

What he saw was not encouraging. The Captive King was standing in the middle of the room, Nor in his hand, standing almost perfectly aligned within the frame of the stream, hand on hip, legs spread and a completely self satisfied grin. Notus was not entirely sure what was worse - the fact that Nor was about to be used on a live broadcast or that the Captive King had clearly practiced this.

Then he noticed something about the broadcast application that made him raise a brow.

"Please welcome everyones very special guest star, Nor," the bull said, thrusting the hand holding Nor forward. He held the mule by his torso, two fingers under his arms and two at his hips, and gently turned him side to side. "He decided to pay me a visit after I got my new base going here, and I thought we could make it into a playdate."

"This isn't, you said," Nor quietly stuttered, barely audible on the camera, before he facepalmed. "I thought we'd do something off camera. Outside, after you let me go."

"Oh, come on Nor," the Captive King said, pulling the mule back to around his face, "You're the gift that just keeps on giving, how could I keep you to myself? Besides, I said I'd put you out of my hands. Didn't say I'd let you leave."

Notus was not at all surprised the deal had gone sour. He missed a bit of hushed dialogue as he opened a submenu, entering in the details he had registered himself under. Not easy with a touch screen and only one hand, and with audio from both the livestream and just behind himself being distractingly unsynchronized, but he was managing.

"Anyway," the Captive King said, waving the hand with Nor about in a flippant manner, leaving the mule's legs and arms to flop. "Since Nor isn't busy enough these days, I figured that I could show you all a special game to play with him."

The Captive King reached down and rubbed at his groin, under a buckle that read "SUCK IT" in bold lettering. There was a gap in his pteruges at the front, showing off his bulge in a black jockstrap. Emphasis on the "bulge", given how the already full jock was getting fuller.

"First, grab yourself a Nor. This can be the genuine article or someone random off the street. Either works, but the real deal is always best." The Captive King casually tossed Nor into the air and caught him in a fist, using his thumb to practically gag the hero, all without looking away from the camera. "After that, find a live studio audience. Trust me, no matter the size, it adds a real kick to the game that makes it satisfying."

Notus wiped his brow as he watched the screen, slowly pulling himself out from under the desk. He had done all he could for Nor with the Faun Pilot. Now it was time to try and find a paper trail.

"Now that you have your participants, get yourself nice and comfortable. Padding is preferred, but sometimes you just have to make do with what you've got." The bull grabbed a number of the larger crates, stacking them up and then squatting down on them, back to the camera.

Nor's expression was one of a man who had seen this happen before, and knew what was coming.

Notus only caught this through glances at his wrist to keep himself up to date. The drawers of the desks were not locked, fortunately, but most of them were filled with either binders of blank forms or operations manuals that were frustratingly vague for what they were for.

At the back of his mind, Notus was developing a theory that Faun only kept his bases going simply because he was so vague with his expenses. Nobody knew how much was actually being spent and where, and thus nobody objected to these concrete mazes being made so shoddily. At the front of his mind, however, he was flipping through the manuals to find the right one.

"Now that you're comfortable, bring your Nor to waist height. You can do this at the front or backdoor, but I find the backdoor is both more fun and more practical." The Captive King removed his thumb from Nor's mouth and shoved the mule's head under the pteruges, his wrist lifting the pleated garment to show some of his bare rump to the camera. "Be sure to rub it in their faces for a bit before going further, to build suspense."

In the moments that Nor's face emerged from between the bull's full ass cheeks and the pleats, it was clear the mule was not impressed. He grimaced as a thumb covered the back of his head.

"And when everyone's full of anticipation," the Captive King said, before shoving Nor onto the crates, "Begin."

The camera did not catch the initial moment, but creaks of the crates and the Captive King's sigh were very clear. The bull slowly lifted his hand from Nor and used it to lift his pteruges, revealing Nor's legs kicking in the air. They kicked harder as Captive King gyrated his hips.

"Mmmm, and that's where the real fun begins," the bull said, grinning over his shoulder as he lifted himself by a foot and sat down again.

"Finally getting somewhere," Notus muttered, huffing as he managed to find a diagram related to the ceiling mounted crane. Granted, it was how to diagnose if one of the crane's pistons were requiring a replacement, but considering that the previous three manuals for "Heavy Lifting Equipment" were for a motorized pallet jack, a forklift and a hand crank winch, and there were fifteen other books in the series, it was like finding gold. Fortunately for him the index was exactly where it should be - evidently someone sensible had designed and labelled the contents of the manuals.

As he flipped through the pages, he took a quick glance at the Faun Pilot. The Captive King was cooing as Nor's knees vanished under the bull's ass cheeks, Nor's legs squeezed together in a way that almost looked like Nor was enjoying it. Gone were the Do It Yourself style instructions, and some of the menace with it. All that was left was the performer in front of a camera and his assistant. Under other circumstances Notus might have mistaken the Captive King for a kinky pornstar. The expressions, muscles and movements, all of it was practiced and showed a man clearly having fun with himself and wanted to have fun with the audience too.

The kicking legs trying to get some purchase pulled Notus from that line of thought.

"Mmph, yeah, this is just how I imagined it," the Captive King said, using his fingers to pull Nor back and press the mule against his taint. "Nice and gel-like. And if any of you at home are feeling sorry for poor Nor here, don't be. Your little hero was all too happy to sell out an innocent man for his own hide. Just one squeeze and he went squealing on where to find him."

Honestly, Notus was only surprised it had taken the Captive King as long as it had for him to mention Nor's side of the deal. It was a rather damning bit of information, true or otherwise, and given how much the Captive King had liked to talk him down, Notus figured it would have come sooner rather than later.

Ignoring the other lines that the Captive King was telling the camera, Notus wiped his brow as he read through the manual. Fortunately the controls on the desk perfectly matched what was laid out in the book, and though none of the actual buttons were labelled the diagram made it fairly intuitive. Someone even left the key in the ignition switch.

All that was left was timing.

Everyone in the room jumped to the sudden thud of the crane being fed power for the first time in who-knew-how-long. The Captive King in particular grimaced as the wood crates scraped his thighs, only to look from the crane to the control room. Notus could feel those eyes peering at him through the glass, and the hamster kept his eyes down and his hands busy.

"Wait, you- oooooh," the bull said, a smirk slowly growing across his features before he burst out laughing. "Oh my god, I can't believe it! You two actually pulled that old trick? The hero was trying to sacrifice himself to save you Chip?"

The Captive King snorted, seeming to forget the camera as he straightened himself up. Notus could see from the corner of his vision that he had the bull's full attention. He felt sweat start to bead as warning signs came up on the desk and his Faun Pilot.

"Well, I have to say, ol' Kooshball here made a compelling performance," he said, lifting a somewhat limp Nor and arranging the hero to look face first at his anus. With a quick jerk forward Nor's head was pressed under the bull's tail, Nor's form suddenly thrashing as much as could be done. His palm pressed up against Nor's legs as his other hand reached for the control room. "I think I'll let him put on a nice vanishing act for that."

Just as he was about to push Nor in further, a harsh mechanical shriek echoed throughout the room and everyone flinched again. The Captive King turned his head to find the source just in time for a wooden crate half the size of his head to make his very eager acquaintance. There was a loud crunch of wood and metal as the box hit, and the Captive King's arms shot out as he fell backwards onto the floor. The entire room shook as he landed, the camera wobbling on its tripod.

"Ooooh, that hurt, you little rat," the Captive King groaned, glaring at the crane arm that ground to a halt over his head. His hands gripped the floor as he pushed himself up. "I hate this place-"

He was cut off as a corner of the box broke, dozens of aerosol canisters spilling out and into his face and mouth. The bull got a full mouthful before irritation, and a larger portion of wood falling on his muzzle, made him bite down and crush half the cannisters. There was a series of muddled pops, his face turned sour, and then he started coughing loudly. His hands went to try and pull the metal cannisters out of his mouth and he fell to his side, only for his head to crash into yet another of the same crates he had been kicking aside since he had arrived.

Notus held onto the control room desk for dear life as everything shook, and the floor angled as the wall mooring audibly cracked. The air was full of coughing, wood being kicked and smashed, dust being kicked up and in general a very unpleasant atmosphere. He had not intended for things to get this bad - at most he thought that the crane arm would take the Captive King off guard, maybe knock him out.

However, the more the Captive King coughed, the more lethargic he became, and the struggles slowly ceased. With a loud, almost indignant groan, the colossal bull flopped onto his back like an oddly dressed Gulliver.

All the same, Notus waited for a solid minute before he carefully let go of the desk, turned around and slowly edged towards the ladder. The room seemed to bounce with every step he took, and he could see the walls of the room had a good more gaps between the seams than he wanted to think about.

To the hamster's infinite gratitude, the ladder was studier than perhaps anything else in the base had been. Not one rung wiggled, slipped or even creaked.

As he took his first few steps across the floor, there was a smell in the air that reminded Notus of a dentist's office, faintly sweet and somewhat soothing. The odd thing was that the memory was not that comforting, yet he felt... actually kind of buoyant, nowhere as anxious as before. It was both comforting and put his nerves back up, and so he pulled his shirt over his mouth and nose to try and filter a little of it out.

As he stepped around the bull's massive legs the air got a little clearer, though between the same legs the air got a familiar muskiness instead. Notus ignored it, focused more on the legs that were trying to find some sort of purchase between the Captive King's ass cheeks. It would have been comical if not for the last few minutes.

When he finally got past the bull's impressive thighs, having to squeeze past them at one point, he did his best to ignore the way that the bull's groin was directly over his head.

"I'm here Nor, just hang on and-" Notus said, before stepping back from an errant kick the mule made. "Hey, careful! It's me, Notus!" In spite of his shouts, Notus could appreciate why Nor was being so careless with his flails - he could barely see the mule's red and blue fingers, much less anything else above the hero's waist, and he knew from experience just how deafening the Captive King's ass was.

So Notus did the only thing he thought would work: dive in and grab Nor's knees in his arms. For a few brief seconds he had the muscled calves spasm against his torso, hooved toes uncomfortably kicking his stomach, but Nor seemed to get the message. Getting Nor out was a little more troublesome, but between Notus hanging from Nor's legs and the Captive King's body slowly relaxing into unconsciousness it was not long before the mule popped out.

"Oh, thank- thank god," Nor gasped, leaning on the hamster as they slowly made their way out. "I thought I was done for there. I don't know what you did, Notus, but thank you... and, um, sorry for landing on you here."

"No problem," Notus said, trying not to feel sore about becoming another man's cushion for the second time that day. "I'm just glad that the safeties on the crane were so badly installed."

"Like everything else here?"

"Yeah. The Faun Pilot had access to the crane motor but so did the controls in the box up there. I just set everything to maximum on both and it was like someone attached a rocket to it. It flew right into the Captive King's face."

"That is... really bad design."

"Like everything else here, yeah. Does Faun normally cheap out on everything?"

"Not quite to this extent, but this is one of the bigger places he's got squirreled away. What knocked him out, by the way? A crate to the face would hardly have done him in. He's taken punches that could level buildings at this size."

"Anesthetic gas, I think. A lot of these things got into his mouth, and he inhaled the stuff when he broke them open," Notus said, kicking a stray canister by accident. He held up the Faun Pilot on his wrist to show Nor the listings. "I accidentally found the manifests for his room when I was accessing the broadcast. Looks like Faun was-"

"Oh, the broadcast, right," Nor said, slumping against Notus and nearly knocking the hamster over. "So half of Novus Ager just saw him use me as a gel pillow, and nearly become an anal toy on top of that."

"Actually, no, they didn't."

Nor perked up at that, to the point he was barely leaning on Notus at all. The hamster grinned a little sheepishly.

"I, um, kind of cancelled the broadcast soon after he started."

"What? How, when, where?" Nor's grin was returning full force.

"In the control room. Faun had the camera patched into the network, using the same systems as the Faun Pilots. I just entered the details I used to register for this thing and just... shut it off."

"So..." Nor was as they passed the Captive King's foot, before he slowly started laughing. "So all he did was just announce himself to Novus Ager?"

"Well, it was after he announced you were a special guest of his. I stumbled a bit with the menu."

"But that's great! It means that the Union knows I've been caught, and since I'm a registered member that would put them on high alert. They'll be tracking this place down any minute now!"

"So we're going to be rescued?" Notus' excitement was starting to match Nor's.

"Within the hour at the latest!" Nor's arms went around Notus' torso and the two jumped in excitement. Then they paused as they sniffed one another. "That said, we may want to have a shower before they get here."

"I, um, saw a chemical shower at the other wall there," Notus said. "I don't know if it's going to be warm, but better dignified wet than smelling of bull butt, right?"

***

"So, feeling better out here?"

Notus pointedly looked out at the city landscape, hugging the warm, orange blanket tighter around himself in spite of the warm summer breeze. His clothing was still wet and cold, and his multicolored hair was flat against his head. The last half hour had been something of a blur for Notus, but between the rescue, the interview that required a narration of the events in the base and a quiet car ride to a bus depot on the outskirts of Novus Ager, he was pretty clearly done with the day.

"Right, um... I got you something to drink, if that helps?" Nor held out a plastic cup filled with a light orange slush, a third of it consisting of small, semi-transparent orbs. "It's a peach, green bubble tea, and the place I got it from is pretty good, so..."

The hamster glanced at the cup, before sighing and slowly taking it. He took a sip, shivered a little, and then sighed contently as he rapidly chewed a couple of tapioca pearls. Nor tentatively sat down next to him on the depot bench, and rubbed his back.

"You okay?"

"...maybe," Notus said after swallowing his mouthful. "Kind of wishing I hadn't taken that shower though."

"Yeah, I hear you. Of all the things to fail, the temperature control is not the one I would have expected."

"You mean you expected something vital to function properly in that maze, like the doors, or the crane motor?"

"Well, who knows where Faun is involved. Maybe the showers are why the base is abandoned in the first place. None of the staff could stand bathing with winter water."

Nor glanced at Notus, who was trying hard to drink his bubble tea and not smile. Nor gently wrapped his arm around Notus' shoulders, and as he grinned Notus failed to remain moody. The hamster leaned into him and shivered after a few seconds. Nor's suit was still cold, in spite of how much the mule was running around.

"Don't worry Notus. Soon you'll be on the bus to a nice hotel, you can order some room service and have a good nap. This'll all be a bad memory before too long."

"Mmmm, 'cept they couldn't get my original bus back. Couldn't even find someone who could fly me out to the next town or something."

Nor grimaced, and ran a hand through his red and blue mane. Nor knew better than most that while Novus Ager was chock full of superheroes and villains, few of them had the ability to casually travel between towns if not cities, and even fewer were fine acting as express taxis.

He did know of some teleportation booths in development, but any destination that was not another booth or beyond a minute range made them inaccurate to a wild extreme. Nor decided it would be more tactful not to mention them though. His one jaunt through the booth made him feel very lucky - he was merely deposited a kilometer above a hotel in another city entirely, and not under it.

"Well, I know it doesn't help, but even if we did find someone available your bus would have been well beyond where your ticket was supposed to get to."

"And even if you did, I would either end up in the wrong spot or without any of my belongings."

"More or less. The Union has contacted the travel company, and though they were kind of skeptical about the whole thing we managed to convince them to send your bags back down on another bus. It'll be a couple of days for them to get them here but at least your accommodations are taken care of, and we've got some gift cards lined up as well."

"I'm going to have to call the hotels I booked, though, and reschedule with my friends," Notus muttered, chewing over what Nor had said and a particularly large tapioca pearl. "But I guess making Novus Ager a new stop on my trip isn't the worst thing that could have happened. Just wish I had my phone on hand."

"Ah, now that I can help with," Nor said, pulling a cloth bag with a drawstring up from his side. It rustled with papers, and one of the sides bulged gently. "While we don't have people who could race you ahead of your bus, I have a few people who owed me a few favors, though they're nice people in general really."

Exchanging his cup for the bag, Notus pulled the drawstring open to reveal a surprise. First was the number of cards inside - when Nor had said "some", Notus had expected a few for restaurants and maybe a bookstore. There were at least a dozen cards in the bag, split between different clothing stores, movie theatres, a shoe shop and, yes, restaurants and a bookstore. All of them were for denomenations above 60 dollars - there was no chance he could spend them all in the time he was there by himself.

The bigger surprise was the relatively flat, vaguely brick shaped object that weighed at the bottom of the bag. When he picked it up he realized it was a lilac colored, rubber padded smartphone case, albeit lighter than others he had used before, and when he pressed down on the power button a familiar screen lit up. It was his own phone, fully charged and ready for use.

"I asked Racing Stripes to search the bus depot you were caught at. He found it in the lost and found, and though the screen was cracked I..." Nor paused and mulled over his words. "...have an acquaintance who knows his way around tech. He fixed it up and put a new case on it, free of charge."

Notus tried hard to suppress the tears forming at the corners of his eyes. When Nor rubbed his shoulder he hugged the mule around his waist, ignoring the cool supersuit against his cheek.

"Thank you."

"You've been through a trying day, Notus. You deserve some compensation for it."

"Does... stuff like this normally happen here?"

"You mean the capture and runaround in an underground base? No, not especially. Villains happen, and bad stuff happens with them, but Novus Ager tends to keep its people and visitors safe. We've got enough people on hand that it usually doesn't go this far."

The two talked for a good while after that, letting the warm summer air and setting sun dry them. It was not enough to make the day any less trying, but it definitely marked an upturn. Notus had no doubts he would have to talk about things with a therapist later on, but for now that felt like it was a good ways off.

All too soon a double decker bus came around a corner a few blocks down the street, and Nor's demeanor changed. He stood up, folded Notus' blanket and tossed the empty drinks cup into the trash, before checking himself and wiping his suit of any dust that might have been on it.

"Okay then, time for the show."

"What show?"

"It's kind of a thing that the Union does. We get tour busses that go through Novus Ager every so often, showing off the city and its history. However, it sometimes gets in the heads of more enterprising villains that it would be a good idea to try and hijack the busses, so the Union tends to have a hero or two on hand just in case. Plus having a hero on the bus tends to make for a memorable experience."

"I guess it doesn't hurt you guys tend to see the city from all angles, if you patrol it a lot?"

"Yeah, though we tend to get asked about the food places more often than not. You'd be surprised how many small businesses send free meals to us so we'll endorse them."

As Notus mused on yet more aspects of what it meant to be a hero in Novus Ager, the bus stopped in front of them and a pair of double doors opened. As Nor stepped in a voice over the speakers introduced him, eliciting a polite applause from the crowd. Notus paused outside the door, but when he saw the coyote bus driver give him a subtle nod and a wave in Notus figured the driver was in on the situation.

Nobody gave him a second look as he stepped in, their eyes still on Nor as he walked up the stairwell to the upper floor. Notus was fine with that - he was a little tired of being the focus of everyones' attention, and there was a nice seat all to himself close to the front. As he sat down and unlocked his phone, the screen briefly turned a light violet and a new set of text emerged on it.

[Hello Notus

I've heard your first stay in Novus Ager has not been pleasant, enough to get the Hero Union involved. I've been there, and I know it's not fun, so I thought I'd give you a welcoming present. Any second now someone you're going to love to meet will be running to catch a bus. Be a friend for him - his accommodations have mysteriously gotten changed around.

This programming shall self destruct in 10 seconds.

Love, Technodude.

P.S. You'll want to change your phone password. Way too easy to get into.]

As the shock of the message blew over, and the vague horror that someone had gotten into his phone brewed in its place, he heard a shout from the bus depot.

"Waaaait!" an older man called out, arms waving just as the bus doors closed and the vehicle started to lurch forward. Notus could see the man running for the bus, human, tall and sunburnt, dressed in a windbreaker, jeans, flipflops, backpack and brown hair that almost went down to his knees. Time stopped as he looked at the other man's bearded face, and for a moment he wondered whether the message meant this man and why.

Then Notus decided that even if this was not the intended person, he still had the opportunity to make someone's day better.

"Hey, um, could you stop, please," he called to the bus driver, gesturing to the man just reaching the bus benches. "He's my friend, and he had to step away for a moment."

It was a weak lie, and he could see the bus driver's brow quirk in the mirror, but to the coyote's credit the bus indeed stopped a foot away from the sidewalk. The doors opened and the man rushed through, panting and gripping one of the bars just past the door.

"Th-Thanks," he panted, one hand patting his pockets. "I'm sorry, I don't normally turn up out of the blue like this, but-"

"If you could take a seat sir, everything's already taken care of by your friend."

"Huh?"

The coyote gestured in Notus' direction, and the hamster froze before weakly waving and gesturing to the seat just beside him.

"Oh. Um, yeah, my friend. Thank you," the man said, awkwardly smiling as he sat down beside Notus.

The driver gave them both a nod, and the bus started up again without much fanfare. The tour guide was entirely nonchalant about the affair, making a joke about how Novus Ager's busses could always be counted upon. Nor made a comment the speakers did not quite pick up but had the upper floor laughing. It was a long minute before Notus heard the man whispering to him.

"Thanks for helping me out there," he said, just barely audible over the tour guide, before he offered a hand. "I'm Greg."

"Notus," the hamster said, taking it and noting just how tanned the hand was, and how handsome Greg's smile was too. There was something familiar about it, the more he looked. "You looked like you were in a bit of a pickle, and it didn't cost me anything to try and help."

"Heh, well Notus, really nice to have someone in my corner. I'll tell you, ever since I got here things have been going pretty wacky for me."

"Trust me, I'm in the same boat."

"No kidding. Your own hotel bookings and taxi reservations got lost in the jumble too?"

"Um... sort of. More a supervillain kind of took an interest in me and..." Notus gestured with a hand like a buffering video as he tried to find a good way of putting things, and sheepishly looked to the window when he could not. "It hasn't been the best of days for me."

"Oh." Greg looked at him for a moment before smiling and patting Notus' shoulder. "Well, I don't know if I can help with the supervillain thing, but I think I can repay you for the bus ride."

Greg pulled his backpack around to his lap and started rooting through it. Notus glanced inside out of curiosity, noticing a number of jewel cases and lanyards, but he glanced away as one was lifted out

"I don't know what kind of genre you enjoy, but I'm part of a music tour that is going across Canada. We've got tons of artists from the last twenty years playing, so there's bound to be someone you'll be able to follow." Greg grinned as he handed the black lanyard over to Notus. The card inside was black with a simple yellow star, the festival name emblazoned on the top with 'All Access Pass' written just below that. At the bottom of the card was a name written in red and purple, underlined twice in those dame colors - Mr. Universe.

Notus' eyes had stars in them as he looked from the pass to Greg.

"Wait... are you Mr. Universe? You sang Comet?" His voice was full quiet awe, and in spite of himself Notus felt a smile spreading across his face. He had not recognized the other man originally, but now that he looked closer, heard his voice and thought back to the photos on his phone, they bore a striking resemblance.

"Heh, well, I haven't been Mr. Universe in quite a while. But yeah, that's me."

"I, you, aftdi," Notus stuttered, before saying a few words that even he could not decipher. He was too busy grinning and being excited to form proper words. He finally managed to get out a coherent, "I love your albums so much," before he started bouncing in his seat. "Can I have your autograph?"

Greg took the excitement with his own grin.

"Sure thing. I have a few CDs here if you have a favorite of mine. You mentioned Just A Comet, so..." Greg pulled out a marker before he sheepishly looked to Notus. "Oh, um, do you know this place very well? I'm new here, and I kind of need to find a new hotel quick."

Notus had one in mind, the laminated card with the address practically burning a hole in his pocket. Then he remembered he had a double room, and wondered if Greg would be opposed to sharing a room.

The day was definitely ending on a high note.